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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Defenseman Henrik Tallinder is understandably looking forward to getting back in the Devils’ lineup tonight when they take on the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum.

He had been a healthy scratch for seven consecutive games. He’ll play in place of Mark Fayne, who will be a healthy scratch.

“It’s always fun to play,” Tallinder said after today’s optional morning skate. “That’s what you want to do. You don’t want to be on the sidelines.”

Tallinder, 34, had never previously sat out for such a long stretch when he was healthy, but he understood the situation with the Devils having eight healthy defensemen and head coach Pete DeBoer wanting to make a change after the Devils lost 5-1 in Pittsburgh on Feb. 2.

The Devils won five in a row after that – and six of seven with Tallinder out – so there wasn’t much of a reason for the coach to change his lineup much.

“You’ve heard it before. He wanted a change and the change was made,” Tallinder said. “So, what can you do? You just have to accept it and move on and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

Still, he admitted it was difficult to be patient while waiting nearly two weeks without playing.

“It always is,” Tallinder said. “You can deny it as much as you want, but of course it wears on you. But you have to deal with no matter what. You still have to deal with it. You can decide where you want to go – if you’re going to whine and be a (malcontent) about it or if you’re going to do the best with the opportunity when it comes.”

Fayne said Tallinder’s positive attitude during his time out actually made him happy that Tallinder will get a chance to play tonight – though it will be at his expense.

“He’s been playing real well in practice,” Fayne said. “He’s been going through a tough time right now, but he’s been so positive with everybody else. He’s not taking it out on anybody. He’s been the same good teammate the whole time. It’s tough that I’m out, but I’m also happy to see him in there.”

Fayne was wearing a plastic guard on his right index finger this morning, but said it was nothing significant and that he is healthy.

“I just jammed it,” he said.

Like Tallinder, Fayne understands the Devils situation with eight defensemen and that if you don’t play well, you might sit.

“When you have eight D ready like this it’s a luxury for the team to have that,” Fayne said. “For a player, you’ve got to know that every night it’s a tryout, a tryout for a spot.”

Fayne admitted he has been playing “not great” the last two games since going to the Boston area to attend his grandmother’s funeral Tuesday morning.

“I think I was forcing stuff a little too much,” he said. “Down low especially with the puck, I didn’t have too much patience and, I guess, finesse to make the correct play instead of just forcing things.”

Fayne did not want to use the death of his grandmother, who was 87, as an excuse.

“Those type of things are always difficult,” he said. “They’re always a little bit distracting, but we also are professionals and we should be able to block out (personal stuff). Everybody has something going on at some point or another and you can’t let things like that distract you from doing your job night in and night out.”

Fayne missed the morning skate Tuesday, but was back in time for the game against the Carolina Hurricanes and wanted to play.

“As I talked to the coaches before that game, I felt I was ready to play that game,” he said. “I felt my head would be straight for the game. I don’t know if it was a combination of that or the amount of games we’ve been playing or if it was just me not being ready. I think once you fall out of a groove like that, you try to force things a little bit and really I’ve just got to simplify it and get back to the basics of the way I was playing last year.”

Still, it was not easy losing his grandmother.

“It was difficult, yeah, definitely. It’s always difficult losing someone and also seeing the family have to go through that,” he said. “It’s definitely hard. But, she was getting old and I think it was her time. It wasn’t anything too, too sudden. So, we’ve been preparing ourselves for it.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.